1369_SACEM_ETUDEMUSIKELECTRO_COUV_dos5_Eng.qxp_Mise en page 1 17/01/2017 17:48 Page1 ELECTRONIC MUSIC IN FRANCE SURVEY 1369_SACEM_ETUDEMUSIKELECTRO_INT_Eng.qxp_Mise en page 1 17/01/2017 17:49 Page1 ELECTRONIC MUSIC IN FRANCE SURVEY 1369_SACEM_ETUDEMUSIKELECTRO_INT_Eng.qxp_Mise en page 1 17/01/2017 17:49 Page2 introduction overview of the ecosystem economic impact 6 9 35 DEFINITION OVERVIEW OF THE ECONOMIC AND ARTISTIC, ECOSYSTEM IMPACT CULTURAL OF ELECTRONIC OF ELECTRONIC AND ECONOMIC MUSIC MUSIC HISTORY IN FRANCE IN FRANCE 12 40 CREATION FOCUS ON FESTIVALS 18 PRODUCTION 42 & PROMOTION FOCUS ON CLUBS 20 DISTRIBUTION 22 BROADCASTING 26 PUBLISHING 28 MANAGEMENT 32 AUDIENCE 2 1369_SACEM_ETUDEMUSIKELECTRO_INT_Eng.qxp_Mise en page 1 17/01/2017 17:49 Page3 development challenges conclusion appendix 45 62 64 DEVELOPMENT WORKING GROUP CHALLENGES FOR 67 ELECTRONIC ACKNOWLEDGEMENT MUSIC 46 ARTISTS 49 CHALLENGES FOR RIGHTS MANAGEMENT 56 CLUBS 58 FESTIVALS 60 SUSTAINABILITY OF CULTURAL STRUCTURES 3 1369_SACEM_ETUDEMUSIKELECTRO_INT_Eng.qxp_Mise en page 1 17/01/2017 17:49 Page4 1369_SACEM_ETUDEMUSIKELECTRO_INT_Eng.qxp_Mise en page 1 17/01/2017 17:49 Page5 introduction overview of the ecosystem economic impact development challenges conclusion appendix FRAMEWORK, CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVES OF THE SURVEY After 30 years in existence, it was deemed This working group, throughout their important to draw an up-to-date overview of research, maintained an intellectual what the electronic music sector represents conformity and rigour, regarding the in France, both economically and culturally. methodology and content, that proved For this purpose, one hundred and fifty very productive. stakeholders in this music scene have been interviewed, creating an open information census of its major economic drivers and BENJAMIN BRAUN enabling its true evaluation, as well as defining its main practices. An independent consultant, he frequently advises the media and culture sectors. The scope of this first exercise is however For more than ten years, he has been more a qualitative study than a quantitative supporting companies and institutions from audit. It represents a first marker in this various sectors to help them face challenges endeavour to precisely measure the and new opportunities brought about by little-documented real economic digital technologies. contributions of this important cultural movement. To achieve this, the survey had OLIVIER PELLERIN to look beyond aesthetic trends and not leave out any aspect of electronic cultures, After obtaining a degree in Music treating them all with equal attention Management and Administration in 2000, and respect. he began his professional career in jazz, hip-hop and electro as an independent To ensure the relevance of this approach, press agent, and created the jazz and rock Olivier Pellerin and Benjamin Braun have label Chief Inspector. In 2008, he became been supported by Sacem staff and by press relations officer for Cité de la Musique a committee of various qualified figures and Salle Pleyel, before joining Radio France in the electronic music world. in 2010 in music broadcast programming and production for France Inter and Le Mouv’ (Alternatives, Addictions, Laura Leishman Project, etc.). From 2015 to 2016 he joined the innovation unit of Radio France, where he developed 3D/binaural sound music applications. He is now focusing on his work as a free-lance journalist and editor, which for several years has been driving him to write about music and the nightlife world. 5 1369_SACEM_ETUDEMUSIKELECTRO_INT_Eng.qxp_Mise en page 1 17/01/2017 17:49 Page6 introduction overview of the ecosystem economic impact development challenges conclusion appendix DEFINITION AND ARTISTIC, CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY UP TO THE 2010s Electronic music, often gathered under the catch-all diminutive electro, today represents an important, even dominant, artistic trend, the greatest impact on modern culture after hip-hop and rock. It embraces numerous genres and countless sub-genres, as much stylistic as for marketing, whose names evolve across the successive generations that adopt them. Thus minimal techno, which had its day in the 2000s, has turned into micro house among young aficionados who weren’t old enough to hit the dancefloors at the beginning of the century. Likewise, hardstep is the offspring of drum & bass, which itself was an evolution of jungle. Far from wishing to reconcile purists and converts, still less to draft a periodic table of electronic music, this survey aims precisely to encompass it all in its diversity, from the most specialised to the most mainstream and from the most «underground» to the most commercial genres. It addresses all electronic music, insofar as all participate in a dynamic of 6 1369_SACEM_ETUDEMUSIKELECTRO_INT_Eng.qxp_Mise en page 1 17/01/2017 17:49 Page7 artistic creation and wealth generation whose In order to draw a quick French picture, techno impact and revenue distribution need to be originates with the arrival of rave parties and measured. acid house from England and Belgium in the late 80s. This hedonistic and strongly localised In order to define the scope of the analysis, movement quickly unifies a community of one must consider that all music that is subject activists, joined by ex-punks, and skirts the to electronic treatment, not as a mere beginnings of hip-hop. Several organisers, technique but as the core of both the process record shops and the radio stations Nova and and the creative end, is regarded as electronic FG unify the movement. In 1997, FG organises music. While this music is closely tied to the a techno march prefiguring the Techno Parade technologies that shape it (hardware and created by Jack Lang in 1998 and taken over software), it does not preclude the use of by the Technopol association that still runs it. instruments (since nowadays, following hip-hop, Even though rave parties are stigmatised, electronic music can be performed with techno culture definitively takes root in Paris traditional instrumentation). Its composition and sees the birth of parties, labels, venues and its performance evolve however along and media that will ensure its survival until constructions that can shatter the traditional today. From the Wake Up parties organised by framework of verse-chorus-verse and snub Laurent Garnier between 1992 and 1994 at the the durations of traditional songs. Moreover Rex Club to techno’s first Victoire de la it can be endlessly sequenced and remixed, Musique in the «Dance or Electronic Music» its characteristics linked as much to category in 1998; from the Rough Trade shop the elaborate resonances and rhythms run by Arnaud Rebotini and Ivan Smagghe, as to the melodies and lyrics. co-founder also of Pulp nightclub with Chloé and Jennifer Cardini that will give birth to This definition, while generic, allows avoiding the Kill The DJ label, a community that will a pitfall: today electronics have permeated all mushroom right up to Daft Punk and David musical creation, ranging from rock to hip-hop Guetta, allowing the current explosion of a via middle of the road music. Electronics as a young generation with no complexes, even mere style effect are outside the scope of this though it isn’t necessarily conscious of what survey in order to focus only on music that their fervour owes to the activism of their uses them as its very essence. Whether techno, elders who are still well present. house or dance, all electronic music was more or less born out of the technological Light will be shed on the complex ecosystem experimentation of the French works of GRM resulting from this quarter-century of (Groupe de Recherches Musicales) under evolution, with the purpose of revealing its Pierre Schaeffer in the late 50s, that ended up structures, practices and orders of magnitude permeating popular music on both sides of the as well as its main issues and challenges Atlantic, whether in Düsseldorf with Kraftwerk to come. since the 70s or Detroit with Underground Resistance in the 80s. The rest of history is henceforth all the better documented now that the reign of electronic music is definitively consecrated. 7 1369_SACEM_ETUDEMUSIKELECTRO_INT_Eng.qxp_Mise en page 1 17/01/2017 17:49 Page8 1369_SACEM_ETUDEMUSIKELECTRO_INT_Eng.qxp_Mise en page 1 17/01/2017 17:49 Page9 introduction overview of the ecosystem economic impact development challenges conclusion appendix 1. OVERVIEW OF THE ECOSYSTEM OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC IN FRANCE In the past few years, the proliferation of electronic music festivals has revealed a growth of this cultural ecosystem which befits addressing beyond mere intuition. THE ADVENT OF Many subscribe to a creative approach whose ELECTRONIC MUSIC strong identity and shared aesthetic unifies FESTIVALS various scenes and above all audiences. YOUNG AND French pioneers in the genre, namely Nuits CONNECTED Sonores in Lyon, Astropolis in Brest, Nordik Impact in Caen and N.A.M.E Festival in Lille, STAKEHOLDERS have been joined by Paris in 2013 with two electronic music festivals, the Weather Festival These newcomers, all of them very young, organized by the Surprize agency and the master new technologies that alter the modes Peacock Society by the We Love Art agency. of music creation and production (home The emergence of other local scenes, studio) as well as the way to broadcast and in Nantes, Bordeaux, and in the PACA region, access the produced works (platforms and makes up for the French lagging behind on social networks). They are digital natives the electronic